Add additional roles to an existing business partner
Using the Business Partner concept brings simplicity to the management of master data records. In the business partner, we have noticed that you create the general data, such as the name or address, just once.
Each business partner plays a "role" within your enterprise - for example, this could be a customer, supplier, or consumer.
Over time, a business partner may increase the breadth of the interaction with your company. For example, if a customer already exists in the database and over time it becomes a supplier, the procedure should be to add the new role ‘supplier’ to the existing business partner and not to create a new business partner.
During this learning journey, we have focused on the business partner in the role of Customer (Fin. Accounting) which is the Accounts Receivable process. Another role that can be added is the Customer role, as related to Sales Order Management. This would allow Bike Company to process sales through the Sales and Distribution area, instead of directly in Finance.